19: Mission to the Unknown

Before Watching

I hope this one is alright. This one is the only whole story never to feature the Doctor or any of his companions. What it is, then, is a precursor, a teaser if you like, to the epic (in length, anyway) 12 parter The Dalek Master Plan, which is coming up after the next story, The Myth Makers. So if this is rubbish, then it’s only going to put me off that story, and believe me, that’s a hell of a lot of story to be put off of. There is a certain fascination to see what a Doctor Who story can be like without the Doctor in it, and so without further hesitation, let’s find out.

After Watching

I asked what a Doctor Who story is like without the Doctor in it, and now I know. It’s like part of a substandard James Bond film, where it’s set in space, and James Bond himself is a bit pants.

Mission to the Unknown is at heart a relatively simple tale. Special Agent Marc Cory – Licensed to Kill (no, honestly, he really does say this) is with a crash landed Earth expedition on the Planet Kembel. His mission is to find out exactly what is going on with the Daleks. They have been unseen in the galaxy for over 1000 years since the Dalek Invasion of Earth was defeated, but there have been reports that they are casting their beady eyestalks in this direction again.

Cory hits paydirt. The Daleks have a city on Kembel, and once he enters it The Daleks are discovered forming an alliance with various alien representatives of the outer planets with a view to conquering Earth. It seems as though the Daleks manage to find Cory and kill him before he can alert Earth , but . . .

I watched the Ian Levene animated recon and it passed quickly and inoffensively enough, I suppose. It was a bit of a dour 25 minutes though. I liked the idea of the Varga plants, a species genetically engineered by the Daleks and then transplanted on Kembel. These plants kill you with their thorns, and then you become one of them. These are the first killer plants in “Doctor Who”, and they certainly won’t be the last. Without the Doctor and companions, though, it’s all a bit pointless, and time will tell how essential it is to have seen this before you start watching The Dalek Master Plan. I mean, the fact that it would be five weeks before The Dalek Master Plan actually started – plenty of time to forget what actually happened in this one – suggests it isn’t all that important. So does it stand on its own right? Well, it all depends on your feelings about the Daleks. As I may have mentioned before, I’m not the Daleks’ biggest fan, and as such, I didn’t think that their presence alone was enough to justify this episode.

What Have We Learned?

Doctor Who without the Doctor is just Who?